


Blight

by PsychoLimbo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse/Child Abuse, Blood and Violence, Child Abandonment, Cryptids, Dragons, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Ghosts and Spirits, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Original Characters - Freeform, Paranormal, Slight Horror Elements, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, a lot of references to mothman, also mild alcohol use, basically its a bunch of college students who go cryptid hunting and get into major shit, im bad at tags, lgbtq+, maybe some gore later on??, no sexual shit dw my dudes, now for the triggering shit, other than the occasional dick joke, poc characters, some villains use slurs for lgbt characters because theyre douchenozzles, supernatural shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychoLimbo/pseuds/PsychoLimbo
Summary: A group of second-year college students, perplexed by strange occurrences around their rural Colorado town, set out to find the source of these events. Things, unfortunately, don't usually go according to plan.





	Blight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewritten version of my older original work, Facade :> I like this revision more, I hope you guys do too!!

Snow falls lightly, turning the sky pale grey and coating the heads of passersby in a thin sheet of white. On the step of a beautiful little house, a young person with short-cropped hair and pale green eyes shifts their weight from foot to foot. An anxious sigh escapes them in a puff of condensation as they reach forward, pulling their jacket hood down and knocking.

There’s the sound of a woman calling out her approach from inside, followed by hurried footsteps. The stranger takes another anxious breath, pushing some flyaway strands of hair behind their slightly pointed ears.

A woman with long, golden-brown hair the same colour as the stranger's opens the door, blue eyes glittering with interest. However, her kind smile fades and contorts into a disgusted grimace when the person on the steps flicks their catlike eyes up with a small, nervous smile.

“H-hi, mom,” they begin, looking desperately as though they want to come into the house but is using all of their willpower to not move an inch, “I just…wanted to say hi to Leo and Fern. You don’t have to let me in, or…or welcome me back. I just want to see them-”

“Get out of here, Micah.”

The stranger recoils with a wince, slightly pointed teeth just barely showing in a grimace. Even so, they quickly regain their composure and give the woman a desperate expression. “Please, mom, I just-I want to see my siblings again. I miss them, you can…you can understand that, can’t you? With dad-”

The woman takes a menacing step forward, making Micah shrink back a few steps before nervously stepping closer again. _“Don’t you ever mention that bastard again. Get away from my home, you half-blooded mongrel.”_

Micah swallows. Their brows lower and the smile fades into a scowl.

“What’ll happen if your other kids get Blight and look less like your perfect little human kids?” they begin in a low, dangerously level voice, “Will you throw __them__  out too?”

With alarming speed, the woman strikes. Her closed fist connects with Micah’s cheek, snapping their head to the side and sending a loud cracking noise echoing through the street. A moment of silence follows, Micah not moving a muscle as the woman snarls, _“Leave before I kill you myself, Micah.”_

Their true name said, as well as three demands to leave the house. Defying their mother again would result in death.

Begrudgingly, Micah pulls their hood back up and ignores the stinging in their cheek. As they turn, they snap, “I can’t wait until you choke to death on all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth.”

The woman snorts, “How classy. How’s your _girlfriend_ doing?”

Micah stops dead. They can feel their mother’s smug glare burning holes in the back of her head, and magic - called a Legacy - begins coursing through their veins. Their anger spikes and turns to rage.

Casting a hateful glare over their shoulder, they extend a hand towards the white sedan sitting in the driveway and lets their magic run wild. A ghostly blue-green aura manifests around Micah’s fingertips before shooting towards the car.

In less than five seconds, the vehicle is lifted up and flipped completely on its roof, shattered glass and twisting metal screeching in the snow.

Micah doesn’t say another word, instead wedging their hands in the pockets of their black and white jacket and walking straight across the icy road and into the thick forest on the other side.

The pure, stifling scent of fear they smell radiating off their mother is enough to make her crack a joyless grin.

* * *

_“Avery.”_

The voice comes as a whisper from the addressed boy’s right. He ignores it, keeping his blue eyes fixated on the notepad he’s scribbling on. Even though he does his best to ignore it, a finger pokes him in the shoulder once, then twice when he doesn’t reply.

As soon as the blonde sees the pale finger of his classmate moving closer for a third time, he hisses lowly, __“_ WHAT, Nate?!”_

Avery can almost see the way the redhead grins from ear to ear before he shifts slightly closer. The professor doesn’t notice, but a few students behind them mutter amongst themselves. Nathan slides his unlocked phone across the table. On the screen is a news article with some images of an almost completely destroyed white car rolled on its back in someone’s driveway. Glass litters the snow-dusted sidewalk as the early spring sun glints off the wreckage. In Avery’s opinion, it looks as though an accident happened, resulting in a rollover of the vehicle. Yet, there are no visible indications of a crash or the car sliding across the yards in the photo. He furrows his brow, leaning closer.

The headline reads ****“Freak Accident on Whitetail Drive, Car Destroyed”****  and Avery finds his eyes drifting down over the article. As he reads, he finds that the car was apparently rolled by one of the ‘cryptids’ that frequent the small town of Charity Ridge. The claim has him rolling his eyes, but he continues reading.

Charity Ridge has always been known for odd supernatural occurrences, unexplained creature sightings, and the occasional mysterious disappearance. The frequency of these events has ghost hunters and paranormal investigators from all walks of life flocking to the town like moths to a flame. Avery’s had enough of the wild claims of cryptids causing mayhem in Charity Ridge, but he can’t quite deny the sentiment. After all, he’s often had an eerie feeling of being watched, or seeing some of the residents as something else in the corners of his vision.

He’s just getting sucked into the article when his professor clears his throat and raps a metre stick across his podium. The sound makes Avery jump, jerking his head upwards as he shoves Nathan’s phone back to him. The elderly professor’s steely grey eyes fixate critically on Avery, then on Nathan before he clears his throat and says, “If you two are quite that bored of my class, you may leave. While I am interested in seeing you all succeed, that interest only entails the times when effort is shown.”

Avery mutters a ‘sorry’ and waits for Professor Deacon to go back to his lecture before he sends a dirty look Nathan’s way. In response, he just grins broadly, sapphire eyes glittering with mischief as he shrugs.

The rest of the class progresses as normal, with minimal distractions from Nathan. Even so, Avery’s positive he can see Nathan shoot him a few hopeful glances - most likely sporting a shit-eating grin - over the course of the entire period. When Deacon finishes his lecture, however, Nathan spares no time in immediately whipping out his phone again as Avery pulls his backpack on and throws his dark navy parka over his shoulder.

“So what was the point of you showing me that?” Avery sighs, running a hand through his short blonde hair.

Nathan grins again, braces in plain sight. “This is, like, the fifth weird property damage incident this month so far, alone!”

“So?”

“It’s cryptids.”

Avery snorts. “Cryptids aren’t real, Nate.”

The redhead’s face wrinkles up in a pout as he says, “You live in the cryptid, monster hunting, and ghost hunting capital of the world, and you still deny they’re real.”

“Because they’re not!” Avery groans, rubbing at the pale white scar slicing cleanly through the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

Nathan shoves Avery in mock upset. “Then come look for weird stuff with me this evening. If we don’t see anything, I’ll stop bugging you about cryptids and aliens and shit. If we do-”

“If we do, I’ll fucking,” Avery pauses to think, “I’ll buy you a pizza every week for a month. Fair?”

Nathan reaches out to muss Avery’s hair with a loud laugh, to which Avery spits a foul stream of words and swats him away. “I’ll make a paranormal investigator out of you yet, Avery James Anderson!”

They continue walking towards the small coffee shop on-campus as Avery sighs. “Is this still part of your elaborate high school scheme to find and date mothman?”

“No, of course not!” Nathan immediately exclaims, but pauses to chew his lip before muttering, “…maybe.”

“You have a lovely boyfriend already, Nate. Leave some mothman for the rest of us lowly peons.”

“What if my plan is to form a polyamorous relationship with both Danny _and_ mothman?”

“That’s only gonna work if you convince Danny to fuck mothman too. And seeing as he’s never gone with you on your bullshit ‘paranormal investigations’ and agrees with me that there’s no such thing as cryptids, that’s not looking too likely.”

“Never underestimate the power of a nerd with ADHD and an insatiable thirst for mothman’s ass.”

“Monster fucker.”

The comment pulls a laugh from Nathan, and the exchange leaves Avery with a lopsided smile of his own. They continue walking onward, only stopping when they see Danny leaning against the wall next to the large floor-to-ceiling windows around the on-campus cafe. He’s playing on his phone, one hand in his hoodie pocket, and wavy black fringe falling over his dark brown eyes. At the sight of him, Nathan picks up his pace and approaches.

Danny doesn’t initially notice Nathan’s approach, but when Nathan whistles loudly and waves a hand at his waist level, cleanly in Danny’s line of sight, the Latino boy raises his head. Upon seeing Nathan, Danny gives a small smile. His hands move in quick gestures, and Nathan replies by speaking while gesturing back.

“Sorry we’re late, Avery agreed to help me find mothman and I’m a little shook.” he says this while glancing over his shoulder at Avery with another shit-eating grin.

With a snort of disbelief, Avery gestures back and replies, “I’m __not__  looking for mothman. I just want your loser boyfriend to stop bothering me with cryptid bullshit.”

Danny laughs softly before meeting Avery’s eyes and gesturing.

_“Thank God his stupid hasn’t rubbed off on you. You’re probably the only sane person in this friend group other than Java.”_

“Java’s absolutely nuts, Danny. Remember when she created a virus that infected her asshole professor’s computer exclusively and all it did was replace every text file on his computer with a file of the bee movie script? That was nuts.” Avery laughs as he gestures.

_“True, but at least she doesn’t want to screw mothman.”_

“STOP KINKSHAMING ME.” Nathan whines as he spells out ‘kinkshaming’ letter-by-letter.

Danny laughs quietly at that. _“When I lost my hearing, I never knew I’d be subjected to reading that word in sign. Ever.”_

Nathan immediately launches into a full-fledged rant about how Danny’s ‘abusing’ him, to which Avery laughs and walks past him. As he passes into the small coffee shop, he reaches out to muss Nathan’s styled red hair. The gesture makes Nathan squawk indignantly and Avery narrowly ducks under a swat from the taller boy.

As he enters the quiet cafe, a friendly and slightly teasing voice calls from the counter, “You guys are bullying Nate again, aren’t you?”

Leaning on the counter is a tall, lanky boy with startlingly green eyes and black hair. His long bangs are held to the right side of his face by two brightly coloured hair clips and his almond-shaped eyes glitter with amusement.

Avery wastes no time walking up to the counter and leaning across it with a smile. “Not at all. He gets _himself_ into these situations.”

The boy opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, Nathan comes loudly into the shop with Danny at his side, gesturing wildly. “Don’t listen to him, Hitashi, they’re both abusing me.”

Danny gestures. _“Nate’s a wimp. Ignore him.”_

Nathan splutters, about to launch into another tangent, but Hitashi just laughs and looks to Avery. “So how was English? You hate that class, but did my explanation of critical essays help at all?”

The blonde groans, running a hand through his hair. “It did, if Nate wouldn’t shove news articles in my face all class and get me in shit with Deacon.”

Hitashi shoots a glance at the redhead, who throws up his hands in mock surrender.

“Hey, when I find more evidence of cryptids, I just have to share it with the skeptics-”

“Your evidence is bullshit, Nate. Just a rolled car in someone’s driveway, that stuff happens everywhere, not just in Charity Ridge.”

_“I was actually looking at that as well. It’s weird, I won’t lie.”_

Avery groans loudly. “Now _you’re_ getting wrapped up in your insane boyfriend’s shit? I thought you were sane, Danny.”

Danny wrinkles his nose with a snort. _“I’m not getting wrapped up in it. I just said it was odd. Odd things happen with perfectly decent reasoning all the time. Also, if you could use sign while you’re speaking, that’d be great. I can hear you somewhat with these new hearing aids, but it’s not super clear.”_

“Oh shit, sorry.” Avery replies while gesturing, to which Danny shrugs nonchalantly.

Once that’s dealt with, Nathan pipes up. “So are you coming with me and Avery tonight, or…?”

“Coming where?” Hitashi asks with the slightest tilt of his head.

Nathan grins, moving up and throwing an arm around Avery’s shoulder. “We’re gonna hunt mothman.”

Hitashi raises an eyebrow at Avery skeptically. Avery shoves Nathan’s arm away and mutters, “Numbnuts here said he’ll stop bugging me about cryptids if I come hunting for them. Tonight. Like a damn lunatic.”

Hitashi glances at Danny, translating the claim to him in sign before asking a question of his own. In response, Danny signs, _“I’m going with them. Not because I believe in cryptids or anything, but just because Nate’s gonna get lost in the damn woods.”_

“I guess I have to go, then. Avery’s the only one keeping me from going over the edge and becoming absolutely bat-shit crazy like Nate.” Hitashi says dramatically with a sigh before grabbing a rag from under the counter and cleaning the crumbs and stains from its surface.

A smile quirks his lips upward as Nathan explodes with false anger. In the middle of an argument between Hitashi and Nathan, a snicker comes from the entrance to the cafe. Avery glances over in time to see a girl with frizzy black hair, dark eyes, and mottled dark brown and beige skin walk in, mere moments before another girl with blonde-streaked curly brown hair, freckles, and stormcloud-grey eyes comes in. Both of them smile at the pandemonium in the otherwise-empty cafe, and the darker girl raises a hand in greeting. “Yo.”

The curly-haired girl grins brightly and moves ahead with absurd speed, grabbing Nathan in a headlock and giving him a vicious noogie. “Stop causing problems, you jackass!” she laughs.

Nathan screams and reaches up to claw at her arm, but she holds him fast and laughs. The scream makes Hitashi cringe and he shouts over the din, _“Can you guys keep it down?!”_

The noise level decreases at that, and the dark-skinned girl moves up and sprawls across the counter on her stomach. Shooting a glance between Hitashi and Avery, she smirks. “So we’re hunting aliens tonight?”

 _“Cryptids, actually-!”_ Nathan pipes up before the girl tackling him jabs him in the ribs.

“Cryptids. Nice.” The darker girl snorts.

Avery sighs again, “I’m being forced against my will, Java.”

Java rolls her eyes at the nickname, reaching forward to flick Avery in the forehead, “I don’t even use Javascript. Why use that name after three years?”

“It’s catchy.” Hitashi says with a shrug, his head snapping up when Nathan screams again, “Aspen, stop making him make that godforsaken racket!”

Aspen releases Nathan with a grin. “Rude. It’s not _my_ fault he screams like a dying cat.”

“It is, actually.” Java whispers, and gets Aspen’s pink sneaker lobbed at the back of her head in response.

It takes a few minutes for the pandemonium to settle, but when it does, they find seats at a table near the counter and lower their voices to a normal level. Hitashi leans forward on his elbows to keep involved in the conversation, Avery closest to him at the table. The group signs as they speak, Nathan keeping an eye out to ensure Danny’s keeping up when the gestures become erratic and sloppy.

Sign language had been the group’s big goal following Danny’s loss of hearing. They’d attended classes together, studied all throughout high school and college, and eventually grown fluent enough in it to hold normal conversations. For most of the group, in fact, sign had become instinctual.

Which is why Avery doesn’t notice himself signing when he glances back over his shoulder and mutters to Hitashi, _“How much do you wanna bet Nate gets himself eaten by wolves when we go out tonight?”_

Avery turns his head just in time to get a wad of napkins to the face from an offended Nathan.

From there, the conversation grows less boisterous. Enough so that Nathan starts discussing his plans for the evening.

“Okay, so,” he begins, reaching into the backpack hanging over the back of his chair and retrieving a notepad and pen, “Since it’s warming up tonight and almost all the snow is gone, we can probably stay out until…sometime after 4am.”

“4am?!” Java exclaims, suddenly alert.

“Yeah, between 3am and 4am is the witching hour. When people see ghosts and supernatural shit the most. So it makes sense to be out at that time. It’s not like any of us have classes tomorrow anyways.” Nathan replies with confidence.

When the small mutter of distaste finishes its course through the group, Nathan continues. As he does, he scribbles notes down on his notepad. “So since my camera is busted-”

“Is this because of last week, when you swore you saw a jersey devil and fell out of a tree trying to film it?” Aspen interrupts.

“...that’s unrelated.” Nathan replies after a pause, “But my other shit was perfectly fine! So if Java could bring her videocamera that would be awesome! I have my night vision camera, so I’ll bring that.”

Java heaves a dramatic sigh. “I guess I can.”

Nathan looks as though he’s about to smack her, but instead, he just takes a deep breath and continues talking, “So we’ll meet at my house around 11pm and we’ll crash there at 4:30am. Sound good?”

“Staying out in the freezing woods until ass o’clock in the morning sounds like a horrible idea, but okay.” Avery pipes up, earning him a dirty look.

“Okay…so I’ll see you guys at mine and Danny’s place tonight. Bring whatever you’ll need ‘cuz other than alcohol, I’m supplying _nothing _.__  I was considering ordering pizza but you guys are all assholes,” the group collectively groans at the loss of pizza, “So yeah, I’ll see you guys later!”

He slaps his notebook shut with a grin before gesturing to Danny. The shorter boy stands up and pauses, stretching his arms high above his head. He signs a ‘goodbye’ to the group, smiling lopsidedly, before hurrying after Nathan.

Avery runs his fingers through his hair with a groan.

_This is so dumb._

* * *

Hitashi arrives in front of his mother's house around 8pm, feet aching from working between classes and his overly long bangs starting to slip free of the clips in his hair. He wears nothing against the frigid wind other than a grey hoodie, blue hat, navy sweatpants, and blue and white striped scarf, but even so, the cold doesn’t bother him at all.

 _ _After all,__  he thinks as he calls upon his Legacy and creates whorls of frost around his fingers, _It’s not like I have a human intolerance for the cold._

He’s careful opening the door, raising his guard and straining his ears to listen. For a moment, there’s not a sound from the other side. However, after a few more seconds, he hears the faintest whisper of a breath and stiffens. With a nervous swallow, he backs away from the door and walks around his rather nice family home. Instead of going through the back door, though, he cracks open a basement window. He flinches at the sound, waiting a few minutes before confirming nobody heard the noise.

Normally, Hitashi lives with Avery in his small apartment flat and everything is fine. He’d normally never willingly walk within a five mile radius of his family home, avoiding it at all costs. Avery knows this and doesn’t pry about it. The reason, though…

…after Hitashi’s elder brother moved away, there was nobody to dissuade their mother from being violent. Hitashi’s tried, but he doesn’t have the same way with words his brother does. He holds his breath, dropping down into the spare room without making a sound.

Again, he strains his ears, listening for his mother’s intentionally light footsteps. It takes a moment for him to calm his nerves, but he soon finds himself falling into the same habits he does whenever he visits - keeping his breathing shallow, his senses on high alert, finding the familiar spots on the floor that don’t creak, and remaining tense in the case he needs to flee. As he does all this, he starts rummaging through the spare room’s closet for the spare sleeping bag his brother left behind.

 _This is the nightmare scenario,_  he thinks while mentally berating himself for thinking it was a good idea to lend his own sleeping bag out.

Finally, his fingers brush the distinctive material of the sleeping bag and he sets about dislodging it from the mountains of Hiro’s old belongings. His mind fills with countless curse words as the bag loudly brushes against the cardboard boxes and plastic bags in the closet, and he swears he can hear his mother’s footsteps moving rapidly towards the spare room door.

Heart rate increasing at an alarming speed, Hitashi throws all caution out the window and yanks the sleeping bag free of the closet. Just as he’s starting to clamber out the window, the spare room door swings open and bangs loudly against the wall. The sound makes Hitashi flinch instinctively, but he quickly recovers and slips out the window. His mother screams in outrage, her shrill voice like shards of glass in his head, _“Hitashi, you get your goddamn ass back in this house!!”_

Of course, he ignores her and kicks the window shut, breaking into a dead sprint away from the house with the sleeping bag tucked under his arm. He finally slows several blocks away and stops to catch his breath. As he does, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

** **Avery - 8:16pm** **

****I was coming by your mom’s place to pick u up since u said u were gonna stop by there but u ran out like Usain Bolt on steroids u ok?** **

Hitashi sighs in relief.

** **Me - 8:16pm** **

****Yea she almost caught me tho, I was runnin on pure panic lol** **

** **Avery - 8:16pm** **

****Jeez dude that’s insane - I’m coming to pick u up now tho, just wait for me since I know approximately where u are** **

** **Me - 8:17pm** **

****I’m at the corner of Chickadee Street and Charity Way. Cuz I know u get lost easy lol** **

** **Avery - 8:17pm** **

****Oh go eat a dick u shithead** **

Laughing at the last text Avery sends, Hitashi puts his phone back in his pocket and waits. Within five minutes, though, he catches sight of Avery’s silver Mazda coming down the road. The familiar car pulls up to the curb and stops, letting Hitashi climb in. Avery eyes him with judging blue eyes before he spits, “All right, asshole, when have I __ever__ gotten lost?”

“That time we tried driving to Denver and you got us to Breckenridge.” Hitashi immediately shoots back.

Avery snorts in disbelief as he pulls away from the curb and starts for Nathan’s house. “I wanted to go the scenic route.”

“Breckenridge is an hour and a half southwest of Denver.”

Avery swats him playfully, which makes him laugh. Yet even as they drive on in comfortable silence, Hitashi finds his mind falling back into familiar patterns of anxious thought.

_Would he be as comfortable with me if he knew what I was?_

_Does he really think I’m a decent friend?_

_What if my mother caught m-_

His train of thought is cut off by Avery reaching over and turning on the radio. A pop song plays softly from the speakers as Avery taps his fingers on the steering wheel and sighs, “You’re getting that spaced-out look again, man.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Avery replies, “It just sucks when bad thoughts mess your day up. I get it.”

The words are comforting, but another nagging worry starts eating away at Hitashi and he voices it, “Is your dysphoria bad today?”

Avery shakes his head. “Nah. I was just trying to be sympathetic. You being around helps the dysphoria a lot too, so there’s that.”

A smile finds its way to Hitashi’s face. “O-oh. Really?”

“Mhm,” he reaches up to rub the stubble on his chin with a smirk, “And I can only hope my being around helps you too.”

“It does.”

“Oh thank god.”

The conversation dies after that, Hitashi looking out the window at the stark white of the bare aspen trees against the dark forest. It’s both mesmerizing and eerie, but the inhuman side of him is, as always, drawn to the woods. He shakes himself and glances in front of them. A deer’s eyes glow at the side of the road and Avery slows to let it cross. As he does, Hitashi suddenly feels an odd presence pressing at his mind.

Casually, he glances out his window again and sees…well, he’s not entirely sure what he sees. At first glance, it looks like another deer with its eyes glowing in the dark. Yet after a moment, he realizes that the creature is __not__ a deer. Perhaps it never was. Whatever it is, it’s black as tar against the patches of melting snow on the ground, constantly shifting like a fluid mass with three glowing white eyes like spotlights. Its antlers branch out at immeasurable length, mingling with the silhouetted tree branches and offering no insight as to exactly how big they are. It fixates Hitashi with its ghastly white eyes, sending the hair on the back of his neck directly upright and making him shudder.

Though, when Avery shakes his shoulder and he glances back, the presence in his mind fades. “What were you looking at, ‘Tashi?”

“I,” he starts, before rubbing his eyes, “I thought I saw something weird. I think it was just another deer though.”

The two of them look back out the window for a few moments, but the creature is gone. This is both comforting and terrifying to Hitashi, who’s had very few interactions with ‘cryptids’ that ended well. On one hand, the creature could be manipulating the Haze to cloak its presence and wait to attack. On the other, though, it could’ve just up and left. Hitashi hopes it’s the latter. Avery shrugs.

“Guess we should keep going then.”

“Yeah.”

Another five minutes of driving down the gravel road brings them to Nathan and Danny’s trailer. It’s quite nice-looking for a trailer, with large windows, new siding and a stone walkway, surrounded by a large expanse of open yard. Nathan’s big mutt, Nessie, pokes her head out of the doghouse next to the door, barking wildly.

Avery pulls up beside Nathan’s small pickup truck and turns the car off. Once the two of them get out, Avery stops to pet the dog before Hitashi starts ushering the blonde towards the door. They enter without knocking, Avery shouting, “We’re here, assholes!” as Hitashi heaves a longsuffering sigh at the crude greeting. Nathan pokes his head around the corner from the living room with a grin and an open can of beer in hand.

“Hey! We’re just chilling for a bit before we head out, you know? Relaxing and shit.” he says with a shrug.

Hitashi chooses to say nothing about Nathan’s decision to drink before going into the woods, but he doesn’t need to speak at all. Avery does it for him.

“Are you serious right now?” he groans.

“What?”

“You’re drinking alcohol,” he pauses to pinch the bridge of his nose, “before going into the woods at night. I don’t see any way this can backfire, _at all.”_

Nathan holds up the beer with an offended look on his face. “It’s _virgin_ beer! I’m irresponsible, but I’m not _that_ much of a dumbass!”

Avery blinks. “Ah. Okay.”

This seems to appease Nathan, who shrugs it off and gestures for the pair to come in. Hitashi kicks off his shoes and readjusts the sleeping bag under his arm before following Avery into the living room. There, Aspen, Java and Danny lay sprawled across the couches with bags of chips and cans of virgin beer and pop, watching Lord of the Rings. Nathan leans across the island in the centre of the kitchen and takes a sip of his drink, then grins at Avery and Hitashi. “You guys can help yourself to whatever you want here. Just clean up afterwards.”

“Got it.” Hitashi replies distractedly as his mind drifts back to thoughts of the creature he saw on the drive.

_What was that? I’ve seen a lot of weird shit but that…that was way different from anything else I’ve seen. Was it a mimic? A demon?_

_Does it know me?_

A familiar awareness starts pressing at the edges of his mind, more tentatively this time. Hitashi’s skin crawls and his instincts are screaming at him to run back to the safety of the town limits. However, he grabs a can of virgin beer and pops the tab open as he casually moves towards the window. Calling on his Legacy, he activates his night vision while ensuring his now-glowing eyes aren’t seen.

He swears he sees those three white eyes staring at him from the treeline.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://www.hitamory.tumblr.com)


End file.
